Crash at Reagan National Airport, DC. Helicopter crash into airliner.

FlightmechH3 said:
… Oh, the Marine "1" H60's might have a wet bar in them. Gotta keep the important elected officials drunk and happy.
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The HMX-1 white tops I flew in did not have that option, but I was on those last in 2008. Things may have changed.
 
geezer said:
The crash you presented as an example of a crash that NVG's could have prevented was a student pilot, daytime, solo.
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It was an example of eye limitation when flying low. Below 200' there's no requirement for obstruction lighting or marking, so you have to assume adverse obstacles exist in non-mountainous areas. It's a TERPs thing.
 
FlightmechH3 said:
I have to laugh at this denial. PAT means Priority Air Transport. The designation is for VIP use.
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PAT does not mean VIPs are onboard. I have seen lots of PAT Blackhawks, King Airs, and Learjets flying around with only crew board. It is a call sign used by the groups that do those missions, passenger or no passenger.
 
dtuuri said:
It was an example of eye limitation when flying low. Below 200' there's no requirement for obstruction lighting or marking, so you have to assume adverse obstacles exist in non-mountainous areas. It's a TERPs thing.
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add to that the fact that towers over 200' agl and other obstructions pop up without appropriate lights/marking/charting (i.e., the obstructions are illegal but will bite just as hard if you tangle with them).
 
geezer said:
Velocity 173 said:

"The NVG usage is getting an undeserved bad rap here. Yes, they do have their limitations which have been discussed but there’s no way in **** I’d run these routes without NVGs. Unaided at those altitudes would be suicide. High tension power lines, unlit towers, flying over glassy water with little contrast. Prior to NVGs in HEMS they had an unusually high accident record at night. It’s gone down significantly after NVGs were adopted.

Please give the location of any power lines across the Potomac, between Dickerson MD, which is roughly east of Dulles, and just north of Quantico a mile. They are all under ground and water.

Unless the government has some unlit towers at their facilities on the MD shore, there are none north of the beltway bridge. The company I worked for had the Federally mandated redundant alarm systems, and reported tower light failure within minutes of failure for the crossings at Dickerson and Possum Point, north of Quantico.

Glassy smooth water is the ideal time to use radar altitude.

I have spent hundreds of hours on that stretch of the Potomac on sailboats, hundreds of helicopter flights have gone by at 50 feet+-.

At a radar altitude of 50 feet, we and they were very safe.

Of course, they have to remember to climb a little to clear the Wilson bridge, but it is both well lit, and full of traffic. No NVG's needed.
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Having a radar altimeter isn't a panacea in preventing spatial disorientation. If that were the case, no one would ever plow a helicopter into the water at night… or day for that matter. Like saying if an aircraft if instrument equipped, then you can’t get disoriented flying IFR in the clouds. When flying over water at night you want to use everything at your disposal and NVGs are key to that. Even with them and an experienced crew things can go south.


As far as wires over the Potomac around DC, the routes just aren’t over the river. They’re over land as well. Staying clear on a route unaided can be done safely but the routes just aren’t for transiting to airports. They’re primarily to get to the 20-30 published LZs that are in the DC area and countless unimproved LZs. These LZs aren’t TERPd for obstacles. There’s no VASI to help a pilot fly an unobstructed approach and obstacles may or may not be appropriately marked (lights / orange balls).

The thing about operating in an urban areas, it’s not an all or nothing application of aided or unaided. If I’m landing to a roof top pad in an urban area, I generally flip my NVGs up on final. If I’m landing to a ground pad deep in the heart of the city, I’m staying goggled up. If I’m given traffic, I’m looking for it aided, unaided, back to aided, etc. On approach to a pad / LZ, you don’t have the luxury that we have in airplanes to a runway with appropriate lighting / markings. You’re constantly scanning to judge closure rates and detect obstacles. Those are the challenges in operating in that type of environment at night. I want any tool that’s going to help my judge altitude, closure rate or anything that could snag me out of the sky.
 
THe RJ almost certainly had TCAS TAs available. It's not clear what additional information ADSB-B would have provided other than the potential identification of the conflicting traffic.
 
midwestpa24 said:
PAT does not mean VIPs are onboard. I have seen lots of PAT Blackhawks, King Airs, and Learjets flying around with only crew board. It is a call sign used by the groups that do those missions, passenger or no passenger.
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Oh?

**The Army Black Hawk involved in the January crash belonged to the 12th Aviation Battalion based at Davison Army Air Field at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. That unit has a classified mission to ensure continuity of government by getting certain officials to safety in case of an attack.


It is also tasked with ferrying high-ranking government and military officials to bases throughout the region. Before the crash the now-closed route was a regular part of their mission routes and training.**

Note "Ferrying" above. This was a capture from media sources last night. The flights are suspended.
 
FlightmechH3 said:
Oh?

**The Army Black Hawk involved in the January crash belonged to the 12th Aviation Battalion based at Davison Army Air Field at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. That unit has a classified mission to ensure continuity of government by getting certain officials to safety in case of an attack.


It is also tasked with ferrying high-ranking government and military officials to bases throughout the region. Before the crash the now-closed route was a regular part of their mission routes and training.**

Note "Ferrying" above. This was a capture from media sources last night. The flights are suspended.
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COG and VIP ferrying are two separate missions, performed by the same unit. What's so hard to understand about that?
 
Ed Haywood said:
COG and VIP ferrying are two separate missions, performed by the same unit. What's so hard to understand about that?
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Not hard to understand when the US Army states what they are doing. The actual priority is VIP transport and the "training" is getting flight time. Training until they are needed for a taxi ride.

The USCG has about +20 different missions. SAR has the highest. LE is second, and so on. I even did prisoner transport work outside of CONUS. Hey, that Congressman's son we got out of the Bahama's prison and took to Miami was a real kicker.
 

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Ed Haywood said:
If the helo had ADS-B In, it *might* have cued the crew that they had identified the wrong aircraft. Maybe the copilot says "hey, we should be seeing two," and they scan a little wider with the 40 degree FOV tubes on their faces. Or maybe not.

In the end, this was a gross procedural failure. The routes repeatedly put two aircraft in a dangerous situation and relied on human skill to avert catastrophe. It was inevitable that the human factors holes in the Swiss cheese would line up.

Question for discussion: do you think this procedure is safe enough in daytime? I think probably so.
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One thing I’ve wondered about this whole thing is the CRM piece. Maybe it’s buried in the CVR but I haven’t heard anything discussed amongst the Black Hawk crew about the traffic. Generally it would be a good idea to say to the person on the controls. “the RJ is 11 o’clock high on final.” Or at least use even bad CRM of “ok I see that guy over there.” Now I’m not saying everytime I’ve gotten traffic I’ve discussed it with the crew. Sometimes you’re so close it’s obvious and you can just point at it and get a thumbs up acknowledgement. Or the crew is overloaded with other tasks (patient care) and not to be bothered. In this case though, it would be prudent to confirm everyone is seeing the same thing.
 
Velocity173 said:
One thing I’ve wondered about this whole thing is the CRM piece. ….
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In the back of my mind, if the flight was effectively a checkride and the IP/check pilot had already provided a couple of inputs that would have been a bust on the AF side, I’m wondering if the PC was essentially operating solo and the IP along for a ride he didn’t sign up for.
 
RyanShort1 said:
I think I disagree. I bet they would’ve had a few more seconds to acquire and identify the helicopter - perhaps in time for a faster climb as it appears they were doing in the last seconds.
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Exactly. I am not suggesting that ADS-B in for the CRJ should in any way have been a primary or even secondary means of avoidance. However, its availability might just have been the one extra slice of swiss cheese that could have saved 67 lives.

PastZTL said:
If this is so obvious now, why wasn't it obvious before.
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Many aviation accidents have causes and/or contributing factors that cite a previously known and ignored issue. Change is highly inconvenient and often expensive. Until there is blood on the ground, we go about our merry way normalizing deviance.

flyingron said:
THe RJ almost certainly had TCAS TAs available. It's not clear what additional information ADSB-B would have provided other than the potential identification of the conflicting traffic.
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TCAS is suppressed at that altitude, and therefore would not have aurally alerted. Maybe the ADS-B target might have gotten their attention. Maybe not. Let me ask you this: Is there a non-zero chance that the availability of ADS-B in could have played a role in preventing this accident?
 
TCABM said:
In the back of my mind, if the flight was effectively a checkride and the IP/check pilot had already provided a couple of inputs that would have been a bust on the AF side, I’m wondering if the PC was essentially operating solo and the IP along for a ride he didn’t sign up for.
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And in this case, being a check ride, the IP should be checking all the boxes. Specifically, the task Maintain Airspace Surveillance they are required to announce the clock position, altitude and distance of the traffic. That’s just basic CRM or in this case, Aircrew Coordination (Army CRM). If I were being evaluated and that traffic was in my primary scan sector (generally 2 o’clock to far left) I’d be calling out that traffic on ICS.
 
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traumamed said:
Exactly. I am not suggesting that ADS-B in for the CRJ should in any way have been a primary or even secondary means of avoidance. However, its availability might just have been the one extra slice of swiss cheese that could have saved 67 lives.


Many aviation accidents have causes and/or contributing factors that cite a previously known and ignored issue. Change is highly inconvenient and often expensive. Until there is blood on the ground, we go about our merry way normalizing deviance.


TCAS is suppressed at that altitude, and therefore would not have aurally alerted. Maybe the ADS-B target might have gotten their attention. Maybe not. Let me ask you this: Is there a non-zero chance that the availability of ADS-B in could have played a role in preventing this accident?
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TCAS is not inop at those altitudes. It just doesn’t provide mandatory escape instructions.

The only information ADSB would have added that this crew did not have is the flight number on the screen beside the target.

That would have not made any difference.

There is not a non zero chance. It is in fact no difference having adsb in the airplane if there is already TCAS.

I have flown turbojet aircraft in the 121 world that have adsb technology on the panel. Zero chance that **** would have helped the PSA crew.
 
The helo crew failed to see and avoid, possibly due to identifying the wrong traffic. Perhaps having ADS-B In in the helo is the more relevant issue.
 
Ed Haywood said:
The helo crew failed to see and avoid, possibly due to identifying the wrong traffic. Perhaps having ADS-B In in the helo is the more relevant issue.
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Technically both crews failed to see and avoid, but the helo crew also failed to maintain visual separation as requested/assigned.
 
Ed Haywood said:
The helo crew failed to see and avoid, possibly due to identifying the wrong traffic. Perhaps having ADS-B In in the helo is the more relevant issue.
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Yeah and I haven’t heard anything about EFBs and ADS-B in yet. Kinda surprised. NTSB has been covering the safety equipment that was installed or installed but inop in the airframe. That’s great and all but the possible lack of optional, not hardwired airframe equipment could’ve made the difference.
 
Probably because the request was for visual separation, not electronic.
 
Roller said:
Do you not have a axe to grind at stopping stupid crashes?

Safety is not a real thing, nothing will ever be 100% safe, but this crash is one that never should have happened and has been foreseeable to anyone who has flown that area
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There are lots of "stupid" crashes discussed here, yet your comments seem to be confined to the one involving the gubmint. The axe you appear to be grinding doesn't look like the one you claim.
 
flyingron said:
THe RJ almost certainly had TCAS TAs available. It's not clear what additional information ADSB-B would have provided other than the potential identification of the conflicting traffic.
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The NTSB preliminary report states that the CRJ did receive an aural TCAS alert (“traffic, traffic”) 19 seconds and 0.95 nm prior to the collision (Figure 3). While FO may have looked and not acquired the helicopter visually (backlit by city lights), seems reasonable that crew assumed there was no threat given no traffic alerts by ATC, Class B airspace, and proximity to runway.
 
Sounds like this is back in the news. Lobach seemed to ignore the warnings from the IP.
 
Meh, nothingburger. Let's also be careful, depending on the news source you read this regurtitation of the NTSB narrative on, it may have been written as a shameless play on semantics to imply "rank malice" and further go down the narrative that the female (itself an implication to DEI boogieman from state media) was further unqualified for the aviation position she held ("Biden's admin social aide staffer").

It has already been established for the mil aviation illiterate on here, that rank is not an issue in the modern .mil cockpit. This didn't happen because the O-3 told the PIC, a CW2, to "STFU and let her do the thing".

Back to the "ignore" inference in question. My students "ignore" me all the time. They're not being insubordinate, even when they did outrank me. It's called "helmet fuego", also known as Tuesday in the training world. And guess what, if we smack into someone or something, it's ultimately my fault as the IP, not my student/evaluatee. If I don't take it fast enough, still my fault. Thankless business this training occupation, it doesn't even pay all that well for the liability and reputational risk incurred, digressing. Tuesday.

They padlocked on the wrong light dot in the conga line, glovesave didn't work this time, they and a bunch of bystanders all paid with their lives. FAA did the right thing and cancelled the imprudent route in question. Some people aren't happy, nobody expected that any changes were going to satisfy everybody. Tuesday.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Meh, nothingburger. Let's also be careful, depending on the news source you read this regurtitation of the NTSB narrative on, it may have been written as a shameless play on semantics to imply "rank malice" and further go down the narrative that the female (itself an implication to DEI boogieman from state media) was further unqualified for the aviation position she held ("Biden's admin social aide staffer").

It has already been established for the mil aviation illiterate on here, that rank is not an issue in the modern .mil cockpit. This didn't happen because the O-3 told the PIC, a CW2, to "STFU and let her do the thing".

Back to the "ignore" inference in question. My students "ignore" me all the time. They're not being insubordinate, even when they did outrank me. It's called "helmet fuego", also known as Tuesday in the training world. And guess what, if we smack into someone or something, it's ultimately my fault as the IP, not my student/evaluatee. If I don't take it fast enough, still my fault. Thankless business this training occupation, it doesn't even pay all that well for the liability and reputational risk incurred, digressing. Tuesday.

They padlocked on the wrong light dot in the conga line, glovesave didn't work this time, they and a bunch of bystanders all paid with their lives. FAA did the right thing and cancelled the imprudent route in question. Some people aren't happy, nobody expected that any changes were going to satisfy everybody. Tuesday.
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None of that matters … if the narrative ( in this case coming from NYT) becomes that she ignored her instructor and then everyone around ended up dead, something will be done about it ( Colgan Flight style )
 
Next time me wife gives me an instruction, and I don’t follow it, I’m going to use the “ helmet fuego” routine. Of course by then I’ll need a helmet fuego to minimize the hail damage.
 
Warmi said:
None of that matters … if the narrative ( in this case coming from NYT) becomes that she ignored her instructor and then everyone around ended up dead, something will be done about it ( Colgan Flight style )
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But it does matter, because one is an imputation of insubordination by someone who is already a target of recrimination by national politics proxy ("female incompetent" ergo "DEI hire"), the other one a fairly common root cause analysis of loss of situational awareness and inability of supervision to glovesave before loss of life.

Again, this emphasis on the "ignored" is just weaponized semantics. It's a canard. Insinuating there was insubordination against the pilot in command in this instance. That's not what the NTSB and those with human factors and accident safety training are saying, but those with a political axe to grind are gonna clown anyways.

On the supervisory side, absent evidence of a struggle/fight for the controls/combative/control-locking by the subordinate, the collision is always ultimately pinned on the instructor for not physically intervening if the evaluatee lost the SA bubble. This isn't new nor a hot take.

Talk to supervising ATCers, they can describe analogous dynamics of their upgrade students. Freezing is a common response to channelization, as is to not be able to process verbal commands while hyper-focusing on information overload from a different source (scope, visual padlock, etc). "Unfair" to blame the instructor when people get killed? Perhaps. But that's a too hot for the sauce, get out of the kitchen type of thing.
wsquare said:
Next time me wife gives me an instruction, and I don’t follow it, I’m going to use the “ helmet fuego” routine. Of course by then I’ll need a helmet fuego to minimize the hail damage.
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Don't know if you were being facetious, but what do you mean the "routine"? Are you suggesting that loss of situational awareness is a lie, and this O-3 actively commandeered the aircraft against IP directive in order to save face? I've heard of witch hunts unsupported by evidence, but that one takes the cake.
 
Doesn’t matter what the PI on the controls ignored. Unless she’s on record of overpowering the IP, every Army Aviation accident where human factors are at fault states “accident occurred when IP failed to take corrective action…” That’s the burden of responsibility of the position.
 
Hadn't heard that term before, and simply thought it unique, and thus a plausible excuse for when the wife figures I didn't hear correctly her - again. I'm running out of excuses, and the "poor hearing" excuse has been way overused. Nothing serious meant. A bit of "levity", as the saying goes.
 
hindsight2020 said:
But it does matter, because one is an imputation of insubordination by someone who is already a target of recrimination by national politics proxy ("female incompetent" ergo "DEI hire"), the other one a fairly common root cause analysis of loss of situational awareness and inability of supervision to glovesave before loss of life.

Again, this emphasis on the "ignored" is just weaponized semantics. It's a canard. Insinuating there was insubordination against the pilot in command in this instance. That's not what the NTSB and those with human factors and accident safety training are saying, but those with a political axe to grind are gonna clown anyways.

On the supervisory side, absent evidence of a struggle/fight for the controls/combative/control-locking by the subordinate, the collision is always ultimately pinned on the instructor for not physically intervening if the evaluatee lost the SA bubble. This isn't new nor a hot take.

Talk to supervising ATCers, they can describe analogous dynamics of their upgrade students. Freezing is a common response to channelization, as is to not be able to process verbal commands while hyper-focusing on information overload from a different source (scope, visual padlock, etc). "Unfair" to blame the instructor when people get killed? Perhaps. But that's a too hot for the sauce, get out of the kitchen type of thing.

Don't know if you were being facetious, but what do you mean the "routine"? Are you suggesting that loss of situational awareness is a lie, and this O-3 actively commandeered the aircraft against IP directive in order to save face? I've heard of witch hunts unsupported by evidence, but that one takes the cake.
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Diamonds crumble before the impenetrability of your posts.
 
“Imputation of insubordination”
“Recrimination by national politics proxy”
“Ergo”
“Glovesave”
“Helmet Fuego”
“Evaluatee”

It’s painfully obvious that I’m going to need the acquisition of a more substantial quantity of advanced, albeit, higher tiered, Everest base-camp level volume of vocabulary in order to develop a more comprehensive, and substantive comprehension of some of the more cogent posts here.
 
Hugh Despenser said:
It’s painfully obvious that I’m going to need the acquisition of a more substantial quantity of advanced, albeit, higher tiered, Everest base-camp level volume of vocabulary in order to develop a more comprehensive, and substantive comprehension of some of the more cogent posts here.
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Indubitably!
 
MFE said:
Diamonds crumble before the impenetrability of your posts.
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I'll try to translate, if I'm picking it up correctly. In my best June Cleaver voice: Put a good team in a bad spot and it won't always work out, but haters are going to hate. Sometimes their BS sounds all fair and righteous, but it's just hate.

Or to put my spin on it, if you look at the clouds long enough, you're going to see what you want to see. Substitute "abyss" for "cloud" if you're German.
 
Velocity173 said:
And the dude is in the 12th. As if they don’t have enough bad press right now. :oops:

www.militarytimes.com

Army pilot claims he distributed LSD for religious reasons

The Army pilot believes LSD is a sacrament “necessary for his continued spiritual growth and development," his lawyers argued.
www.militarytimes.com www.militarytimes.com
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We once had a city council candidate run on the promise to add LSD to the city's water supply to help the population open their minds and be as enlightened as he was.

Fortunately did not win, but scarily did secure over 100 votes in a town of 7,000.
 
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